Biography
Jim Jupp established the British imprint Ghost Box in tandem with graphic designer and musician Julian House, and he channels his main creative outlet through Belbury Poly. The project merges playful, eerie, and dreamlike qualities while drawing from library music, prog rock, pastoral psych-folk, and the pioneering electronic work of Raymond Scott alongside the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Together, Belbury Poly and Ghost Box shaped a distinctive atmosphere that critics labeled hauntology, leaving a substantial mark on underground scenes during the first decades of the twenty-first century. Jupp handled the entirely electronic construction of early efforts such as the 2004 album The Willows, whereas the 2012 release The Belbury Tales incorporated live instrumentation and studio oversight from bassist and guitarist Christopher Budd, drummer Jim Musgrave, and Jon Brooks, a frequent Ghost Box participant who also partners with Jupp in the Belbury Circle. The 2020 collection The Gone Away offered a suite of unsettling yet reassuring compositions that marked a return to solitary creation.
Ghost Box emerged discreetly in 2004 via the limited-edition mini CD-R debut EP Farmer's Angle by Belbury Poly, which was soon followed by the full-length The Willows. The label steadily expanded its roster with material from assorted projects shared among Jupp, House, and Brooks. Under the alias Eric Zann, Jupp issued the 2005 recording Ouroborindra. Two additional Belbury Poly albums, The Owl's Map in 2006 and From an Ancient Star in 2009, appeared before the decade closed, by which time awareness of the enigmatic label had spread and its devoted audience had expanded. Vinyl production began at Ghost Box in 2010, coinciding with Belbury Poly's series of joint singles alongside Moon Wiring Club and Mordant Music, plus a reissued, enlarged version of Farmer's Angle.
The Belbury Tales adopted a more psychedelic, guitar-oriented approach than earlier work and received widespread praise upon its 2012 arrival. Subsequent joint 7-inch releases with the Advisory Circle and Pye Corner Audio paved the way for the fifth Belbury Poly album, New Ways Out, in 2016. The Belbury Circle pursued the synth-pop vein first tested on their 2013 collaboration Empty Avenues with John Foxx before unveiling their inaugural long-player, Outward Journeys, in 2017. In 2019 Belbury Poly supplied accompaniment for narrator Justin Hopper and folk musician Sharron Kraus on Chanctonbury Rings, an album drawn from live renderings of Hopper's 2017 volume The Old Weird Albion. A further exploration of cosmic folk forms, The Gone Away, surfaced in 2020.
Ghost Box emerged discreetly in 2004 via the limited-edition mini CD-R debut EP Farmer's Angle by Belbury Poly, which was soon followed by the full-length The Willows. The label steadily expanded its roster with material from assorted projects shared among Jupp, House, and Brooks. Under the alias Eric Zann, Jupp issued the 2005 recording Ouroborindra. Two additional Belbury Poly albums, The Owl's Map in 2006 and From an Ancient Star in 2009, appeared before the decade closed, by which time awareness of the enigmatic label had spread and its devoted audience had expanded. Vinyl production began at Ghost Box in 2010, coinciding with Belbury Poly's series of joint singles alongside Moon Wiring Club and Mordant Music, plus a reissued, enlarged version of Farmer's Angle.
The Belbury Tales adopted a more psychedelic, guitar-oriented approach than earlier work and received widespread praise upon its 2012 arrival. Subsequent joint 7-inch releases with the Advisory Circle and Pye Corner Audio paved the way for the fifth Belbury Poly album, New Ways Out, in 2016. The Belbury Circle pursued the synth-pop vein first tested on their 2013 collaboration Empty Avenues with John Foxx before unveiling their inaugural long-player, Outward Journeys, in 2017. In 2019 Belbury Poly supplied accompaniment for narrator Justin Hopper and folk musician Sharron Kraus on Chanctonbury Rings, an album drawn from live renderings of Hopper's 2017 volume The Old Weird Albion. A further exploration of cosmic folk forms, The Gone Away, surfaced in 2020.
Albums
The Path
2023
New Ways Out
2016
Farmer's Angle (Revised edition)
2010
The Owl's Map
2006
Farmer's Angle
2004
Singles
